Doctor Who Series One: Did I Mention It Also Travels In Time?
by The Hearts Of The Tardis
Summary: One shots inspired by each episode of New Who series one. Rose and the Doctor romance will probably be fairly prevalent.
1. Did I Mention It Also Travels In Time?

"Right then! I'll be off… Unless… Uh…. I don't know… You could come with me."

When the Doctor burned his own planet, committing genocide so large that he deserved nothing less than death itself, he never thought he would feel anything but guilt again. Not if he wanted to stay sane. How could he feel joy in the midst of such despair? He was a murderer, and yet there he was, stammering like a stupid ape, the beginnings of perspiration gracing his palms.

He inferred, from Rose's taken aback expression and furrowed brow, that she was in a state of contemplation. Her inexperienced human mind calculating and computing all the reasons to or not to run into the mysterious blue box with the enigmatic alien man who stood before her. The Time Lord, who, for one reason or another, had an inexplicable desire to travel with her. He was going to lose her, he realized, opening his mouth to sweeten the deal.

"This box isn't just a London hopper you know, it goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."

"Don't, he's an alien. He's a thing," Mickey cried, the Doctor's persuasion be damned. If the Doctor had taken a disliking to his uselessness earlier, his bitter expression now was a whole different story.

"He's not invited. What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go, anywhere." The Doctor was well aware that he shouldn't be making his reckless, semi-suicidal life sound so irresistible. He should be telling Rose Tyler to run; run fast and far away from him. Something about her though, something so ordinary and so, _so human_, made him want her to stick around.

"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose questioned, uncertain. Truth be told, the Doctor was glad she asked. A minuscule corner of his guilt subsided. Rose Tyler deserved to know this.

"Yeah," he said honestly. Her placid look faltered. His hearts felt like weights within his chest, she was going to say no.

"Yeah, I can't. I've er, I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."

Dangerous as the Doctor might have been, he was quite talented at exercising control. His features begged to contort to the likings of the sheer disappointment and grief flooding his mind, but he refused to allow them to falter. Rose Tyler had made her decision, and he would be on his own.

She had said no.

"Okay. See you around." He spoke in terse sentences. Traveling alone had never felt so lonely. It didn't though, when he held Rose's hand in his.

His mind and body disconnected momentarily. He knew he should get into the TARDIS, he knew he should dematerialise the TARDIS, he knew he was supposed to leave Rose with her boyfriend and never see the teenager's compassionate caramel colored eyes ever again. The thought was like stones falling one by one within his stomach, weighing his body in place. Rose's eyes were gazing intensely into his, and he wondered if it was his own wishful thinking, or if she was really begging him to stay.

Reluctantly, he shut the door, trapping Rose outside of his life, forever.

His heavy footsteps echoed throughout the console room with more volume than they had ever before, the metal grating uncomfortable beneath his feet. His hands that had been holding Rose's less than hours ago violently pressed the buttons on the console, finding their rightful place automatically. His eyes downcast at the controls, and this regenerations overly large ears picked up the whirring on the TARDIS as it appeared within the time vortex.

His mind reached out, calling for someone; anyone at all. Eerie silence clouded his brain. Once again, he was reminded that they were _all dead_.

He laughed darkly, the realization of his plight striking him as pitifully ironic. He had always been bad at being a Time Lord… Or maybe he had been the best at being a Time Lord. It didn't matter now though; he was both.

Spur of the moment, he set the TARDIS coordinates for the 60th century, an urbanized planet very integrated between humans and aliens, he amended internally, remembering bitterly that there was no human on board in which humans weren't aliens too.

He didn't really care much where he ended up, but he figured he might as well give the TARDIS something to strive for.

"Do your worst," he whispered to the console. He intended to sound playful but came off bitter, a side effect of excess loneliness, the engines whirred in response, landing without grace.

* * *

The TARDIS arrived in the seventy first century,and, as miss landings went, had been pretty accurate this time around. If only the seventy first century on this planet had not consisted of the underground society of suicidal snake-like people trying to blow up the place. He had saved the world again, without help and unnoticed.

Passing a pub on his return trip to the TARDIS, the Doctor decided a victory drink was in order. He was quick to make a detour indoors, the dimly lit bar suiting his darkened mood quite nicely, and the din of the place perfect for drowning out his thoughts.

Despite this, his thoughts managed to wander. He recalled each and every moment of his latest expedition, pain aching inside his hearts as he remembered every so often when he would turn slightly while he talked, or inflect his voice a certain way, or say something to himself in the simplest way possible… So simple that even a human could understand exactly what he meant.

He was alone, he reminded himself. He had been since the Time War. He hadn't even thought to look in a mirror until he got to Rose's flat, because no one he cared about would be seeing him anyway. He knew the right thing to do was travel without companionship until the day he died. _God knows, it's what I deserve_, he thought honestly.

Rose had given him another shot at not screwing up yet another person's life, and he should be glad. Glad that he wouldn't be responsible for ruining such a pure, innocent, intelligent, and oh-so-young girl's life.

Guilt clouded his chest and made it's way to his brain. He shouldn't have even asked her! He had let himself think, just for a moment, he didn't have to be on his own anymore. When her hand was in his, as their feet slapped the concrete, when she swung out to save him, the Doctor had felt alive. For the first time since the Time War, he felt like he wasn't just a walking corpse. He felt like he had _survived_.

It was almost as if he had found something… Someone… He had been searching for.

So he asked her to travel with him. That wasn't a crime was it? Wanting to keep feeling the way Rose Tyler had made him feel. He finally could remember what it felt like to not wallow in misery all the time! Why should he let that slip away?

Now, it seemed he had to.

He brought his Hypervodka to his lips and took a long swig.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor turned his head with a start, catching the stare of a tall thin man in pinstripes sitting next to him.

"I'm really not in the mood for flirting," The Doctor said sharply. The man's eyebrows raised to his forehead, like he didn't believe him.

"You look lost," The man remarked, running a hand through his seemingly gravity defying hair. The Doctor pierced into the man's brown eyes with his blue ones, scanning them. They were clouded with sadness, loneliness, even nostalgia.

"So do you," The Doctor shot back, irritation evident in his words.

The man nodded, lost in his own thoughts for a moment. "I lost someone," He explained vaguely. "From the looks of it, so did you."

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Not really," He said truthfully. He hadn't lost someone… He had lost that feeling...The feeling that holding her hand had given him. "Who did you lose?" He asked, because even in sadness, the Doctor was always curious of the mundane lives people led.

"A girl," The man smiled, just for a moment, "An amazing… Beautiful girl," He paused.

The Doctor offered a sympathetic look; loss of love, the most human reason of them all.

"And I wish… More than anything… I wish I had a time machine, just to go back and see her again one last time…." The man's dark eyes moistened ever so subtly, and the Doctor's hearts ached for him, almost as if he could feel the man's wistful sadness in the back of his own mind.

"Well, even if you did you couldn't do that because you'd become part of events and-" The Doctor opened his mouth to ramble, but stopped abruptly.

The image of Rose staring at him, her eyes pleading him not to disappear, was forever burned into his mind. As it resurfaced, his entire self focused on studying it. He couldn't have been imagining that… She was looking for him to ask her again, to give her another chance to reconsider.

He racked his brain, trying to come up with a reason he could ask Rose Tyler to join him in space and time travel again. Then it hit him, she didn't know it was space _and time _travel! He'd never told Rose that TARDIS was time machine! A space machine… That's easy, anyone could say no to that! But even Rose Tyler, with her chips, her telly, and her stupid lump of a boyfriend, even she couldn't say no to a time machine.

He bid the heartbroken man in front of him a one hearted goodbye, slamming some of this planet's currency on the bar before hurriedly navigating his way to the exit. The bright illumination from the star this planet was rotating blinded him momentarily, heeding him on his journey.

He knew it was illogical to rush, the TARDIS being a time machine and him being hundreds of years and thousands of kilometers past the place and time Rose stood regardless how how fast he reached his time and space traveling box.

Setting foot on the metal grating brought relief to his system. He savored the possibility that the next person to step into the TARDIS might not be himself. He slowed his brisk pace only to set coordinates, not wanting to land to early or too late and muck everything up.

Somehow though, he knew the TARDIS was on his side for this one. She needed him as much as he needed her, and she knew missing this date would devastate him all over again.

His breath refrained from exiting his lungs, which he knew was idiotic as not breathing wasn't exactly going to assist him in soothing his nerves. Has he ever asked twice? He wasn't sure… All he knew was that he needed to now.

He exhaled, and opened the door. Rose's eyes met his again, a sight he once believed he would never have the privilege of again.

"By the way… Did I mention? It also travels in time." He hoped the line didn't sound quite as rehearsed as it actually was.

The muscles in his fists clenched and unclenched, attempting abate his nerves. He had left the door ajar, certain from Rose's expression that she was going to come running inside.

What if he was the one who had to close it?

He didn't though. Much like he had predicted, Rose Tyler came running into the magical blue box with a widespread grin across her face. The Doctor knew, as soon as the TARDIS doors shut, with Rose now in toe, that he would forever be grateful that he had come back.

And he'd thank… The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows.. Someone had convinced him to come back, something had happened… He just couldn't quite remember…

_Oh well,_ he thought.

He would solve that mystery later.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews are greatly appreciated! **


	2. Do You Want To Go Home?

**A/N: A big thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, and followed! It means so much! I hope you continue to enjoy the story!**

**Also fun fact each chapter has a corresponding art piece that I post on my Tumblr (The-Hearts-Of-The-Tardis . tumblr. com). Basically this whole story is a Doctor who rewatch challenge for myself in which I rewatch every episode and draw and write something inspired by it!**

* * *

**Do You Want To Go Home?**

"I'm left traveling on my own 'cause there's no one else," the Doctor stated, his voice somewhere between blank and bitter.

"There's me," Rose offered. She looked up at him hopefully, her eyes gleaming on unperturbed innocence.

_How could I tamper with that? _The Doctor questioned himself.

Rose's lips flattened into a line across her face. She knew she could never replace his species, but that did not make her being this clearly broken man's friend meaningless. Maybe, however small and unimportant she was in the grand scheme of things, she could help him.

"You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?" He had to give her a warning… A chance to leave. More than he could recall wanting anything though, he wanted her to say no. He wanted this small, impressionable human to be so enamoured, so irrevocably influenced by this life, that her subconscious gave her no choice but to stay.

"I dunno… I want…" Rose was frightened, every nerve in her body shaking. She had just gone off a billion years away with a perfect stranger and watched her home planet suffer within the inferno of the exploding sun. It was overwhelming, really. Her mind flashed to all the pedestrians surrounding them. They were like her from only yesterday, not even bothering to think about what else there was above their cloudy blue sky, telephone wires, telly, and… Chips… She breathed deeply... Chips… That smelled like chips. Her waving voice of uncertainly turned quickly to one of determination. "Oh, can you smell chips!?" She asked, his voice rising excitedly.

The Doctor, who moments before, had been staring down at her, nerves, anger, and frustration battling inside him, grinned from ear to ear. She didn't want to leave, to stop traveling, _she just wanted chips. _If that wasn't beautifully human, he didn't know what was.

"Yeah," He chuckled with relief, and utter admiration. "Yeah!"

"I want chips…" Rose's voice was adorable, he realized. There really was no other way to describe it other than cute, no matter how condescending that might have sounded were he to have said it aloud. She was so certain, so willing to change the subject from such heavy material to something much lighter, much more fun.

"Me too!" He told her honestly. His enhanced Time Lord senses could also smell chips, and Rose was right… They did smell delicious

"Right then! Before you get me back in that box chips it is and you can pay!" Rose requested. She knew then, just from the contagious grin on the Time Lord's face, there's no way she wanted to stop traveling now. Not when they'd only just begun!

"No money!" The Doctor reminded her, a bit teasingly.

"What sort of date are you?!" Rose said. "Come on then tightwad, chips are on me! We've only got five billion years till the shops close!" She joked, smiling with her tongue in her teeth, causing him to grin as well.

They both laughed, Rose leaning against his shoulder as they strolled casually down the crowded city street. Their hands were locked together, Rose's petit hand contrasting with his larger one as they swung their arms playfully. By the time they entered the clear glass doors to the chippy, the Doctor and Rose looked as if they might as well have known one another for all their lives.

"Smells even better in here," Rose said, inhaling the now much more prevalent aroma of freshly fried chips. The Doctor responded with a taunting eyeroll.

"If it smells so strong to you I might as well be passed out from the scent! You humans have a terrible sense of smell!"

"Oi, how would you know? It's not like you've actually been human before have you?"

"You can sit wherever you'd like." Rose and the Doctor's glanced upwards upon hearing the greeting, glancing around for a moment to figure out the speaker. Their eyes both settled on a young woman with bright cherry hair, sporting a casual waitress outfit.

"You can pick Rose, since you're paying and all," The Doctor stood back to invite Rose to figure out the prime seating spot. The waitress gave both of them a friendly smile, her lips coated in inexpensive looking lipstick.

"That's not very chivalrous of you," she joked. "Making your date pay." Due to the obvious age gap, the Doctor assumed the woman had noticed that his hand still clasped on to Rose's so tightly that his knuckles were almost white.

"Tell me about it," Rose nodded, the glint in her eyes affirming she was kidding.

At the same time, the Doctor said, "I'm letting her choose the seat I feel it's a fair trade!"

Rose gave the establishment a once over before deciding on a booth in the right hand corner next to two floor length windows. The golden sun rays coming in from outdoors had made the maroon leather unnaturally warm. Despite this, a shiver made its way up Rose's spine as she sat down, reminded of how close she had been to getting fried to death by a beam of blindig sun. The gentle lick of this friendly sunlight at her shoulders served as a reminder that she was safe now, until the next adventure anyway.

"You alright?" The Doctor asked, noting her shiver. Rose nodded hastily.

"Yeah, the sun just reminded me of… The platform." She spoke vaguely, well aware the waitress was standing over them, listening to every word.

The Doctor nodded, glancing up at the waitress. "We'll just have chips, yeah?" He looked at Rose to confirm this, and she nodded eagerly. "That'll be it, thanks," he said, noticing the filled cups and pitcher of water already on the table. The woman scribbled in her notebook before wandering off.

Rose poured water down her throat enthusiastically, parched from the intense heat of the sun she had been subjected to on Platform One. The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle at her barbaric way of drinking, as if she hadn't seem a water molecule in days. He felt slightly guilty that he hadn't even thought to offer her water on the TARDIS before they got here, and made a mental note to add water to his list of _Things Needed To Keep a Pet Human, _a list he had started years back as a joke for his various companions.

"Moisturize me," Rose demanded humorously, pushing her now empty glass of water towards Doctor rolled his eyes, filling the glass with the crystal clear liquid in the pitcher in front of him. "I can't believe that that _trampoline _is the future of the human race," Rose remarked, annoyed. "Well, I mean, she's not really because people start mixing with trees and things… God knows how _that _happens," The Doctor suppressed a laugh.

"Not exactly surprising, you apes and your obsession with… Pollinating." The Doctor raised an eyebrow suggestively, and Rose giggled,

"Mmm, I don't know Doctor," she began, shrugging mockingly. "You and Jabe really seemed to hit it off

The Doctor's tongue flickered out from the depths of his mouth to moisten his lips, noticing just how dry they were as an awkward tension filled the air between him and Rose. Rose bit her lip, realizing her error almost immediately.

"Sorry… I forgot to ask uh… Are you alright? I don't know exactly what happened but I… I'm really sorry.." Rose tapered off, the fingers of her right hand nervously fiddling with a packet of sugar from the table's surface.

'It's nothing unusual for me… With the TARDIS. Death is no less common than rain in London." The Doctor grimaced at how light his tone was despite the dark subject matter. From Rose's expression, he inferred she was slightly disturbed by it as well.

"That doesn't make it any easier… I mean, I would imagine. It still hurts," Rose said. It wasn't a question.

The Doctor nodded vaguely. "You get numb to death, when you see enough of it. You know it should hurt but you don't feel anything. It terrifies me, when once in a while, I just feel numb."

Rose inhaled deeply, rolling his words around in her brain. "I feel it," she realized. "It's okay if you don't Doctor, I could do that for you?"

"I've found traveling with someone else opens my eyes a bit. When someone is important to you it helps you realize that everyone is that important to someone else," the Doctor said in reply.

"I better work at becoming important to you then," Rose said, her lips curling up and her cheeks pinkening slightly.

The beginnings of a smile etched into the Doctor's face. He wanted to tell her that she was already helping, that from the moment her saw her he had felt just a bit lighter, but he just met the girl…No need to scare her off just yet.

The waitress brought their chips to the table, and it was then too late to tell Rose anything even semi cheesy. Everything he said went completely unnoticed as Rose devoted every inkling of energy into devouring the salty, greasy chips laid out before her.

"These are gorgeous," Rose said, examining a chip in between her thumb and pointer finger. She eyed it with suspicion, as if nothing could be that tasty.

"You're supposed to eat them Rose," the Doctor reminded her, popping a handful of chips in his own mouth.

"Do you get hungry?" Rose asked randomly, slightly embarrassed at how the question popped out. "Like… 'Cause you're alien, I don't know.."

"Yeah, I do," the Doctor confirmed. "Not nearly as much as you lot though… One meal per day is more than enough… But I can metabolise food faster and slower as I need to, which comes in handy more often than you'd expect." He grinned, taking another handful of chips.

"God, I would pay to get to do that," Rose said enviously. "Drop a jean size and eat as many chips as I want, I might give up space and time travel for good and just eat all day!"

"Another thing I don't understand about humans: the food obsession. What's with that? It's like you lot live to eat!"

"Well I'm sure many humans wouldn't understand your weird desire to go watch a planet blow up with a girl you just met, but you don't see me insulting that!" Rose's tongue was poking out between her teeth again, and the Doctor realized how much he adored sneaking glances at her imperfect yet somehow perfect grin.

His eyes grew serious again, staring at Rose intently. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "Do _you _though?" His voice was deadpan. "Do you get it?" He was reaching out with his mind again, a wave of loneliness hitting him once again when he felt silence. He just wanted someone to understand how he felt, even if just for a moment.

"Your planet burned so you took me to go see my planet burn. I get it," Rose paused. "Bit passive aggressive mind you, but I see what you meant. If someone's gonna sign up to travel in your box with you, you want them to at least have some segway to understand how you felt... That crushing feeling in my chest when the Earth debris was floating through space, every place I had ever stepped gone within an instant… I can only imagine how you must feel Doctor." Rose's hand had reached across the table and slipped it's way into his.

"Yeah," he said, his voice flat. He squeezed her hands, the grease from the chips sticking their hands together momentarily. "It hurts doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Rose nodded, "it does… But we've still got places to see, you and me?" She phrased it like a statement, but the Doctor knew it was a question. It was as if he had been giving her some sort of little test, and she was wondering if she passed.

The Doctor added _taking my first ever companion to see her planet burn _to his list of reasons to hate himself. The mental list was so long, so filled with death and destruction, the Doctor wondered how he looked at himself in the mirror.

"Of course we do! Loads of places to see, you and me! There's an entire universe out there Rose Tyler and it's waiting for us!' His melancholy gaze from earlier swapped itself out for one of excitement. He knocked the final chip out of her hand, plopping it into his own mouth. "Hurry up Rose and get the money out, let's go have another adventure, how about it!?" He raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead, causing Rose to seriously question his sanity.

Rose was smiling so hard her entire face felt numb. Somehow, this daft alien man's mannerisms managed to make her double over with excitement, adrenaline, and more often than not, hysterics. It felt like everything she said he could somehow make ten times funnier. He looked so enthusiastic about going on another adventure with her; Rose tyler, the shop girl(well not anymore thanks to him) from London. She was unemployed, uneducated, and really nothing special, and yet for some inexplicable reason, the Doctor wanted to travel with her.

She slammed the money on the table, not bothering to wait for a check. It wasn't as if the chippy's owners could get pissed at them after they disappeared into the time vortex! The Doctor's hand slid into hers as if pulled there by magnetism, and they took off towards the TARDIS, giving each other one last fleeting glance before they began their determined sprint.

Anyone with even just a passing glance would happy, for a moment, that these two had found each other. They seemed to radiate joy. They were for the time being, both thinking and feeling the same thing, so in sync with each other it was uncanny. They both wondered:

_How did I get so lucky?_


	3. Two Hearts

**A/N: Sorry it's been awhile! Thank you for all your kind words!**

* * *

**Two Hearts**

For the past day or so (Time on the TARDIS tended to be partially subjective), Rose had been trying to place what the emotion coursing through her veins while running with the Doctor had such an overbearing semblance to. As she and her new designated driver grinned in delight at Charles Dicken's reaction to their fading police box, Rose finally figured it out.

The ins and outs and ups and downs of these near death and world saving experiences created adrenaline rushes with such a magnitude, that they reminded Rose of the feeling one gets after drinking vodka. Barring the hyper sense of alertness, both produced an unnatural high feeling that was nearly impossible to ever imagine ending.

And so, Rose concluded that quite logically, travelling on the TARDIS could probably be considered a drug. When she turned her head to meet the Doctor's animated blue eyes and overly large smile, she realized that she was hooked.

"Where to next Rose!? Future past or… How does an alien planet sound!?" Rose grinned. It seemed she was a TARDIS regular now. She didn't even merit an invitation now.

Rose only realized at that moment what the fault in her prior thoughts was. How long would this inviting last? How long would Rose spend in the TARDIS, leaving her mum and Mickey stranded all alone on Earth? If the traveling continued in the direction it seemed to be heading, than that answer was indefinite, it may as well have been never.

Knowing this life as she now did, it very well could be.

"I want to go home," Rose said, before the words could ever begin to make sense in her own mind. The Doctor's face fell, and Rose realized the implications of her words; that she was leaving this lonely man all alone all over again.

The Doctor stared at Rose, pain evident in his sunken eyes. This girl, Rose Tyler, had waltzed into his life only a day ago and nearly died today because of it. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to regret the moment in which she ran into the TARDIS and joined him. Somehow, he could just sense that the two of them _fit _together. He had smiled more sincerely and more often in the past day than he ever had since the Time War began. Rose, to him at least, was hope, and he lit up around her.

"Okay." Even someone as accustomed to lying as the Doctor could not manage to keep the pain out of his voice. "Easy." His voice sounded deflated as he flicked a lever on the console.

Rose raised her palms up, as if telling him to pause. "Not forever," she corrected. Her lips, pressed together, stretched into a small smile. "Just for a visit… See my mum, maybe get some clothes… If you still want me here that is?" She tugged at the folds of her skirt.

The Doctor's eyelids lowered momentarily, visibly relaxed. "Of course I want you here- I invited you didn't I?" His hearts fluttered at Rose's eyebrow raise to his words, her teeth finally making an appearance in her next smile. "You sure you want to come though? Nearly turning into a ghost alien zombie would be enough to scare someone off…"

"Not me then," Rose said. "I think I'm started to get a bit addicted."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, a magical glint in his eyes. "I'd say we make a good team then," he said, and Rose nodded.

"I'd say you're right." Rose and the Doctor both then became aware that Rose's left hand was comfortably encased in the Doctor's right hand, and neither remembered such a migration occurring. Reluctantly, they forced their hands to their sides.

"I'll only be a few minutes!" The Doctor bounced on his heels after interrupting the newfound awkward silence. "Just gonna do a few quick repairs to the TARDIS console, than we'll land in the early 2000s." He knelt to the floor, taking out his sonic screwdriver and pointing at the console.

Rose made herself comfy in the captain's chair, pulling at her Victorian style dress to fit snugly in the seat.

"So explain now, how come I can die in the 1800s if I wasn't even born yet? What exactly are the rules in time travel? I've never been one for science fiction, so I guess I'm a bit uneducated on the subject." She hoped her curious questions didn't annoy him.

"Most of the science fiction surrounding your time is just that- fiction. Real time travel tends to be simpler. You go back in time, you can change things, you go forward in time you change things. Some things can't be changed and you can die at any moment in the history of the universe."

"Why can't some things be changed… Like, could you go back and rescue everyone killed on 9/11… Or save your planet or something?" Rose hoped the Doctor wasn't as telepathic as his TARDIS, because her dad's picture wiggled it's way into the forefront of her thoughts.

"Some events are fixed. No matter what I do, they happen. The time lords specialised in knowing which events were fixed. We can see like… Vague imprints of the way everything in the universe can unveil."

"So you've got the entirety of the universe swimming 'round in your head? And you've still got room for thinking!?" Rose's eyes grew larger with sympathy.

"Well my head is a fair bit bigger than yours." he said and Rose stifled a snicker. "Not physically bigger," he corrected, throwing his arms of the console trying to abate Rose's laughter. "Mentally bigger."

"Aw aren't you a sweetheart, having to insult every life form in the universe for not having as many iq points as you."

"Rose even in your time they've realized how useless the iq test is! And that would be sweat_hearts." _ The Doctor struggled momentarily as a wire he was gripping shocked him, and he released it instantly.

"Hearts? As in you've got more than one? Hang on I thought you looked just like a human?"

'C'mon Rose get it right! You look time lord! And I do, clearly, but the insides a bit different. Two hearts in this chest," the Doctor said, pointing to each hearts' place in turn.

"That's so…" Rose paused. "So alien..."

"Oh not this again." The Doctor rolled his eyes. He held out his palm face up to her, and for a moment she thought he was offering his hand to hold.

"Want to feel it?" He asked. "My hearts beating?"

Rose nodded enthusiastically, placing her right hand's thumb over a vein in his wrist. She kept it there for a few moments, waiting.

_Ba Ba Dum Dum Ba Ba Dum Dum Ba Ba Dum Dum _

Rose's finger pressed into the Doctor's flesh as she registered the blood flowing through his body, feeling the rhythm of his life force.

"Well now I know what to do if I ever forget you're alien," she said, and the Doctor return. "So… Two hearts, immensely clever, extremely full of yourself, anything else you're hiding Doctor?"

"Well I think I've got a bit of a thing for bananas this time around." The Doctor raised his leather clad shoulders ambiguously.

"Is there subtext in that sentence that I need to pick up on?" Rose asked, raising a sculpted eyebrow. The Doctor's eyes flew to the TARDIS ceiling, sighing over dramatically.

"You humans, can't take a single sentence the way it's said can you? Now go get changed back Rose, go see your mum like that and she won't even recognize you."

"Oi, what's that supposed to mean!?"

The Doctor was surprised when the list of possible replies to Rose's complaint started rolling through his mind. He thought of saying: _Well you look beautiful for a human in that but in your sweatshirt and jeans you were absolutely stunning, _or, _Well if you don't take that dress off soon there's no way I'll be able to let you out of my sight long enough for you to go see your mum._

He grimaced at the words floating through his head, appalled by all of them, and unsure what to make of them. He wasn't exactly ready to argue with his little inner head voice telling him that Rose Tyler was absolutely gorgeous right now... But he couldn't and definitely shouldn't be feeling such a strong bond to a human companion- especially someone so young and new to the TARDIS. This was wrong. Even the Doctor, who's ethics system was so screwed up that he committed multiple genocides in one act, knew for sure that him falling for Rose Tyler was wrong.

Rose's eyelids fluttered rapidly, awaiting his reply. she crossed her arms in mock irritance, tapping a rhythm out on the TARDIS floor with her shoe. The Doctor wondered, for only a millisecond, if not falling for Rose Tyler was going to be a lot more complicated than it sounded.

"Just go get changed will you!? In case you decide to stay at home I don't want you stealing the TARDIS's clothes." The Doctor planted a false agitated frown on his face.

"Alright, alright," Rose said, taking a surrendering step in the direction of the wardrobe. She disappeared down the corridor.

As soon as Rose disappeared the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, only to find that he didn't feel relieved in the slightest. He was a bit frightened at the prospect of taking Rose home, as there was the possibility she would want to stay there. This pink and yellow girl had only begun to fix him, and even if he didn't deserve her friendship, he sure as Hell wanted to.

Hastily, the Doctor began to program in the coordinates of the Powell Estate in 2005 and only minutes later, Rose walked back into the console room. In place of her elegant gown was her eggplant sweatshirt and over sized jeans. The item she wore the best though, was her radiant smile that the Doctor could feel from across the room. Her beauty was in the eyes, gleaming under the lime TARDIS lights.

He smiled back at her, for at least the fifth time that day. His hearts had felt as if they were on fire ever since the Time War, and here Rose was, thawing them one tongue-in-teeth grin at a time.

"Ready to go?" He asked.

"Only when you are," she said.

Well, he had been right about one thing. Not falling for Rose was definitely a hell of a lot more complicated than it should have been.


	4. Bout Time You Had One

The idea wiggled its way into his mind and bit on to the flesh of his brain, refusing to let go until he slipped his large hand into his pocket and took out a TARDIS key that felt welcoming and warm at his cool grasp.

"'Bout time you had one," he said to Rose, dropping one of the past pieces of Gallifrey right into the palm of her hand.

"See you later," he added, before spinning around and walking away.

She looked up at him, her gaze a mixture of admiration, and apprehension. Rose was only now just starting to see him as more of a man and less of a mystery. An man with a house key and an odd way of asking her to move in with him. He should have love that, and he did, it made him feel warm, but he couldn't help but feel frightened as well.

Because he was not harmless, and he was not a normal man. He was more than that. He was a Time Lord. He burned an entire planet. He was the Doctor, and only just recently, he wasn't even that.

He walked away, because the domestic conversation that would follow about being given a TARDIS key just wasn't The Doctor's style.

Rose was standing star struck for a moment, almost in disbelief at what had just occurred. Right before her eyes the enigmatic alien man who was prone to disappearing off the faraway lands had shone her that maybe just maybe, she had given him a reason to stick around. The corners of her lips upturned into a smile as her chest filled with a feeling of self importance. She hadn't felt worth much of anything until only very recently, when a certain someone grabbed her hand and whispered "run". The grin strung across Rose's face became smug and her eyes were downcast on the key before shifting to the Doctor fading in the distance. Something inside her was certain that she would see him again soon. Finally, she was at complete ease with her new friendship. The Doctor wasn't going to run away, and he definitely wanted her around

She walked back inside, clutching the key tightly in the palm of her hand, an eerie sensation rising over her shoulders when she noticed the key's unnatural warmth. Despite the human feeling of the Doctor, it was little things like this that reminded Rose of the truth of the matter.

Clasped in her fingertips was not just any key. It was the key to a box that traveled through time and space. Rose could barely wrap her mind around the concept, and just thinking about it made her blood pound through her system excitedly. She felt victorious, wondering how in the whole huge universe that she, Rose Tyler, had managed to get an alien to willingly hand her the key to his time travel machine.

A rather handsome, kind, and all around daft alien at that.

She walked back to her flat, guilt nibbling at the sides of her stomach when she remembered the predicament she had put her mother in for the past year. It seemed the side effects of her new daft friend definitely were not all benign.

"Where've you been?" Jackie says in an accusing tone, immediately noticing Rose's new-found radiant smile. "Out with him I presume? I'm surprised he's even left your side for a single second!"

"He'll be back soon," Rose affirmed, sitting herself down in a vacant armchair. She toyed with her new key with her fingers, finding it immensely comforting. She studied the key again, repeating;

"I know he will."


	5. Hurtling Across The Sky

**Hurtling Across The Sky**

"So… How long will this… Hurtling across the sky thing take?"

"'Bout an hour, maybe two. Depends. Why?"

Rose shrugged. "I was just wondering where to put this bag?" She asked, gesturing to the backpack the Doctor had left on the TARDIS floor. "Like should I put my clothes in the wardrobe or…" She trailed off.

"Well you'll need a room obviously. Guest bedrooms are just down the left corridor. One left, one right, three doors down, you can't miss it. Take whichever you fancy and the TARDIS will move it wherever convenient." The Doctor pretended to be uninterested, keeping his gaze fixated at the console. In reality though, he was absolutely delighted that Rose was signing up to travel indefinitely.

"I assume there's no rent or anything," Rose said, half jokingly,

"What would I ever need money for?" The Doctor replied, and Rose shrugged.

"Going out for chips, quite clearly," Rose said as she raised an accusatory eyebrow, smiling in the Doctor's direction.

The Doctor's smile widened at the casual way Rose swung the backpack over her left shoulder, hurrying down the metal grated floor and into the depths of the TARDIS. His eyes lingered in the spot of her disappearance, reveling in the realization that Rose was the sort of person he missed immediately after she left the room.

Although the dimly lit TARDIS corridor could be perceived as eerie by most ordinary people, Rose was anything but that. She skipped along the floor of the hall like an overjoyed child on Christmas morning, trying to hold in her excitement as she followed the Doctor's vague instructions.

"A left, one right, three doors down," she repeated to herself. Her new TARDIS key tingled in her palm.

Upon arrival, she found a hallway that seemed to stretch on for miles, lined with doors that presumably all led to individual guest rooms. She opened the first door curiously to find an ugly little room complete with one bed and a dull tan comforter. She grimaced and shut it immediately.

She continued down the hall, opening and shutting room doors as she went.

"God, are you messing with me?" Rose said aloud after opening the third room in a row that had only a pile of straw to sleep on.

The ship's lights flickered above her tauntingly, and Rose arched an eyebrow.

"Hang on, can you hear me?" She asked aloud, before shaking her head. "Look at me, I'm talking to a box."

"She's not just any box!" Rose spun on her heels to see the Doctor stepping into view.

"How'd you get here so fast?" Rose asked, startled.

"She gave me a shortcut. This box is sentient Rose, has she been giving you trouble?"

"She's been showing me complete rubbish- honestly have you no taste!?" Rose kicked the TARDIS coral growing from the walls in agitation.

"Hey, she's going to give you hell for that later! It goes by era Rose. These sort of rooms were in back in the 71st century. I think you'd be more into the 50th, or even 21st if you want to go basic."

"Okay, where are those?" Rose crossed her arms.

"Down this way, come on," he said, leading Rose further down the hall.

After three solid minutes of walking, Rose was getting visibly irritated. "Didn't you say she gave you a shortcut? Why's she making us walk?"

"I don't know, maybe because you kicked her! Just a thought," the Doctor said, sarcasm dripping from his words. "I'd be cross too if you kicked me for no reason!"

"So we're literally inside a living creature? What if she goes mental and tries to kill us or something, doesn't that scare you?"

"Oh please, you lived with your mum for nineteen years, and she's a way bigger threat than the TARDIS."

"She only slapped you!"

"That's more than the TARDIS has done. Ah, finally." The Doctor motioned to the array of doors in front of them, and Rose squinted at the Gallifreyan writing above them.

"Why isn't it translating?" She asked, getting closer to the illegible scripture on the wall.

"It says the year of the room layout, roughly. The TARDIS doesn't like to translate Gallifreyan, she only does it in emergencies. " The Doctor leaned on the side on a twisting piece of coral, tracing the circular writing with his finger.

"Gallifreyan… Is that you planet's language?" Rose asked, glancing up at the Doctor, almost as if she was making sure he was okay. The Doctor looked down at her, his blank gaze meeting her round, welcoming eyes.

"Was," he said. He tried to keep all emotion from his voice, but Rose laced their fingers together, detecting a semblance of sadness. She squeezed his hand, and for a moment, Rose thought the blankness in his stare was replaced with one of gratitude.

"Well," she said, grinning widely to break the silence. "Bedrooms," she released the Doctor's hand to free her own and open the first door.

The Doctor only chuckled in response, stepping into the room with Rose.

The room was a comfortably sized circle, the walls made up of winding TARDIS coral. The floor was a soft lilac rug that Rose assumed was the same grating of the console room underneath. The bed was roughly the size of Rose's bed at home, with a pink comforter. the room was furnished with a cozy couch that curved along the edges of the room, a large, paper thin telly that seemed to flip out from the ceiling upon command, along with a futuristic night side table and a curved dresser.

"Finally, something that doesn't make me feel like I'm gonna be sick." Rose turned her head to smile at the Doctor. "This is the one. Definitely. Now help me unpack."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose, shaking his head. "I'm not doing your work for you!"

"It's your ship!"

"It's your room!"

The Doctor plopped himself down on the couch cushion, crossing his legs. He watched Rose as she unzipped her bag, and began shoving fistfuls of clothing into various drawers.

"Did your mother not teach you how to fold?" He quipped.

"I thought you didn't do domestic," Rose answered, stifling a laugh at his appalled expression at her unpacking abilities.

"You don't need to live a domestic lifestyle to have basic organizational skills."

"Oh like you're so perfect," Rose said, forcing a particularly large amount on sweaters into one drawer.

"I am!"

"Do you even have your own room? Do you sleep?"

The Doctor's lips flattened across his face. "Sometimes, when I feel like it. I find moving bits around in the TARDIS console a lot more relaxing to be honest."

"Uh-huh, I'll bet you do." Rose laughed, shooting the Doctor a radiate smile in which her tongue poked through a gap in her teeth. The Doctor tried not to linger his gaze for longer than normal, but to be honest, her smile was captivating.

"Tinkering Rose, I meant tinkering."

"Mmmhmmm," Rose said, as if she wasn't listening.

"Are you done yet? The bag you brought on board didn't look like it could fit more than a few shirts."

"This box doesn't look like it should fit more than one bloke, but here we are," Rose shot back. She was now unpacking various photos she brought of her mum, Mickey, and friends, to brighten the place up.

"Well I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you don't have inter dimensional time lord technology- hold on no, do you really need a picture of Jackie!? And Mickey!

"Yes, she's my mum, and yes, he's my boyfriend. Questions?"

"If you insist."

"I do," Rose said, without hesitation. The Doctor crossed his arms with a faux grumpy face.

"Mickey's not so bad, as I said earlier, we'd be dead without him." By this time, Rose had finished unpacking her stuff, and she joined the Doctor on the couch.

"I know." The Doctor scrunched his face up in displeasure. "It's embarrassing."

"Ha, if I've learned anything from traveling with you, it's that you're useless on your own."

The Doctor's lips curved upwards only slightly, and he felt the tips of his fingers migrate to touch Rose's knuckles gently.

"Good thing there's two of us then," he said.

Rose, if she was being completely honest, couldn't agree more.


End file.
